by Lynn, JB
“C’mon,” he said, reaching out to grab my arm, stopping me in my tracks. “You’ve got to know that.”
“I know I’m the only one left,” I murmured, looking away. “That’s why it seems like they love me.”
“They don’t seem,” Patrick corrected. “They really love you.”
“Yeah, okay.”
He stepped in front of me so that he could look into my eyes. “You really don’t believe it.”
“I believe it,” I said quickly. “It’s just that Darlene was Leslie’s favorite, and Marlene was Loretta’s, and Susan and Theresa always had a special bond, so I was always the odd one out.”
“So you’re your mother’s favorite?” Patrick asked.
I blinked at him. “What?”
“Well it sounds like your aunts’ favorites corresponded to their own place in the family. The twins each gravitated toward a twin. Your Aunt Susan was the oldest and so identified with Theresa. You’re the second-born and so is your mom, right?”
I nodded dumbly wondering when and why he’d memorized my family tree. I never got to ask him though, because at that moment a terrible scream came from inside the vet’s office.
Chapter Twelve
Whirling around to face the building, Patrick drew his weapon. “Get back in the car,” he ordered.
Ignoring him, I followed closely behind as he approached the building.
There was another scream.
He charged the door.
I stayed on his heels.
“Police!” he shouted, throwing the door open and leaping into the waiting area, gun drawn, stance aggressive.
“Shoot it!” the vet’s assistant, Monica, screamed, brandishing a broom at poor Piss, the cat, perched on top of a filing cabinet.
Patrick lowered his gun. “Ma’am, I don’t think…”
Monica swung the broom at the cat, who yowled her displeasure, leapt from the filing cabinet, and scrambled across the floor to hide under a table laden with “Spay or Neuter Your Pet” literature.
Monica chased after her, jabbing at the cat like some insane chimney sweep.
“Hey!” I shouted. “Stop that!”
Ignoring me, she took another vicious swipe at the trapped animal.
Pushing past Patrick I yanked the broom from the other woman’s grip, raised it overhead and threatened, “How would you like it if I chased you around with this?”
Monica paled.
Reaching around me, Patrick plucked the broom from my fingers. “I think everyone should calm down.”
“I hate that cat,” Monica spat. “Hate her.”
I crouched down and eyed poor Piss who was trembling against the back wall. Her one good eye was a narrow slit, watching me warily.
“C’mere, sweetheart,” I coaxed. “No one is going to hurt you.”
“I’m going to kill her when I get the chance,” Monica promised from behind me.
Turning, I glared up at her. “Maybe you need a job where you don’t work with animals.”
“That’s not an animal. Piss is pure evil,” the woman countered, incensed.
“Maybe you could go tell the doctor that Miss Lee is here to see her dog,” Patrick suggested.
“Fine!” the vet’s assistant flounced away down the hall.
I turned my attention back to the cat. “C’mon out. It’s safe. I’m not going to let her hurt you.”
“Promise?” she mewled weakly.
“I promise.”
She crept forward and sniffed my outstretched hand before shoving her head against my palm.
I stroked her soft fur soothingly. “It’s going to be okay. Everything is going to be okay.”
She moved closer, standing up on her rear legs so she could rest her head against my knee. I rubbed the spot behind her good ear and she arched her back contentedly.
“Okay if I pick you up?” I asked.
“Yes,” she meowed softly.
Gently scooping her against my chest, I stood up. “There you go,” I soothed softly. “You’re safe now.”
Suddenly aware that Patrick was watching, I looked over self-consciously at him.
Arms crossed over his chest, he leaned against the wall, a bemused expression dancing in his eyes.
“What?” I asked.
He shook his head. “With everything else going on, you still manage to be compassionate to a cat.”
“It’s easier than being nice to a person,” I countered quickly.
Leveraging himself off the wall, he stepped close to me. “You’re pretty amazing, Mags.”
A warm flush spread from my chest to my face. Needing to hide my reaction to his compliment, I snuggled my nose into the cat’s fur.
“Do you think I can pet her?” Patrick asked. He held the back of his hand up to her face so that she could sniff him.
“What do you think?” I asked the cat. “He won’t hurt you.”
“Okay,” she meowed softly.
“I think it’s okay,” I told Patrick.
Moving slowly, so as not to startle her, Patrick gently stroked the side of her face near her injured eye.
She purred her delight.
“I think she likes us,” Patrick murmured.
I looked up at him, thinking I liked “us” too.
“DeeDee’s doing great,” Doctor Felton announced, bursting into the waiting room. Halting abruptly, he stared at us. “You’re holding her. No one ever touches Piss.”
I looked down at the cat purring in my arms. “Why not?”
Shaking his head, the veterinarian motioned for us to follow him. “DeeDee should be able to go home tomorrow. I just want to keep an eye on her for another day to make sure no infection sets in.”
“Maggie! Patrick! Maggie!” DeeDee woofed excitedly when she saw us.
Doctor Felton opened the door to the crate DeeDee was in. Grabbing her collar so she couldn’t leap out and hurt herself he urged. “Easy, girl.”
I dropped to my knees in front of her so that she could excitedly lick my face. The cat squirmed in my arms, but didn’t jump away despite the big dog’s proximity.
“Maggie. Maggie. Maggie,” she panted. She looked up expectantly at Patrick. “Meat?”
I laughed. “I think she’s hungry.”
“Sorry, girl,” Patrick patted her head. “I’ve got nothing for you.”
“Hungry,” she whined softly.
“Has she had anything to eat?” I asked the vet.
“A bit,” he answered.
“She ate a whole bowl,” God intoned. “I on the other hand haven’t had anything.”
I looked around trying to figure out where he was hiding. Finally I spotted him in a corner. “What are you doing over there?”
“The beast tried to crush me,” he complained.
“You have a very vocal lizard,” Felton said.
I sighed. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
“You seem to have a real way with animals,” he continued.
I shrugged. It wasn’t like I could tell him that I can communicate with them.
“Maybe you’d like to adopt Piss?” the vet asked hopefully.
The cat stopped purring. Her body went rigid.
“No!” God shouted. “We agreed, no carnivores!”
“I don’t think…” I began.
Piss squirmed out of my arms, jumping to the floor.
“It’s just that I’m moving out of my own place and in with my aunts,” I tried to explain.
“I get it, Sugar,” she drawled, slinking away. Her Southern twang was thicker than usual, signaling how upset she was.
“She’d make a good outdoor cat too,” the doctor opined desperately.
“She’s a sweetheart, but she’s blind in one eye, missing half an ear, and it looks like something ate the end of her tail,” Patrick said drily. “Somehow I don’t see her coming out on top in a street fight.”
“Please,” the vet begged. “She’s been here over a year and no one will
take her. Monica, my assistant, hates her.”
“Meaning when they argue about me, they don’t bang boots,” Piss hissed cattily.
“I’ll give you a discount on the bill for your dog’s surgery,” the vet bargained. “A good discount. A great discount.”
I bit my lip feeling sorry for the cat doing her best to hide her heartbreak and look like she didn’t care about the outcome of the conversation.
“I’ll throw in a year’s worth of cat food and flea collars,” the vet negotiated.
“No carnivores!” God shouted.
“Shut up!” I yelled back at him.
Startled, the vet snapped his mouth shut.
“Not you,” I muttered. “God.”
“God?” Felton asked, perplexed.
“God!” Doomsday barked.
“The lizard,” Patrick supplied helpfully. Walking over to my reptilian housemate he crouched down and held out his palm so that God could climb on it.
They’d bonded when we were in Atlantic City.
“What’s wrong, little guy,” Patrick asked. “Is DeeDee getting all the attention?”
God clambered onto his hand and squeaked.
At least to Patrick and the vet it sounded like a squeak. To me it sounded like, “I forbid you to bring that carnivorous creature into our home.”
“I have to think about it. I have to talk to my aunts. Can I let you know tomorrow?” I asked.
“Absolutely not!” God thundered/squeaked.
“If you take her tomorrow, and never, ever bring the cat back, I’ll take care of the dog’s entire bill,” the vet offered, sweetening the deal even more.
His desperation made me nervous. “Just what is wrong with her?”
“Nothing!” the cat lifted her tail, twitching it like she was doing some sort of royal wave or something.
“Well,” the doc admitted grudgingly, “she is difficult.”
“Maybe because you call her Piss,” I countered.
“And she’s been known to engage in destructive behavior,” he admitted.
A vision of Piss ruining my aunts’ antique furniture made me wince.
“Only after that awful woman shot me with water, or chased me with the broom, or put out that horrid…” she shuddered violently, “…horrid seafood cat food that she knows I despise.”
“Home take?” Doomsday whined softly.
“Doctor Felton says you have to stay one more day,” I told her, resting my forehead against hers. “Then I’ll take you home.”
“Stay God?” she panted worriedly.
I looked to the lizard, waiting to see what he’d do.
“I’ll keep an…I’ll watch over her tonight,” Piss offered.
DeeDee’s ears perked up. “Sing?”
I frowned, not relishing the idea of singing to the dog in front of my murder mentor or the vet.
“She means the caterwauling carnivore,” God explained. “She yowled all night. The tone deaf mutt loved it.”
“Maybe he’s hungry,” Patrick said, holding God up to his face to peer at him closely.
“He is,” I replied.
“Okay, so I’ll be back tomorrow to pick up DeeDee and to let you know about…” I bent down to look the cat in her good eye and whispered so that only she could hear, “Are you sure you don’t want to tell me your name?”
She regarded me with stony, sphinx-like silence.
“I’ll let you know about the cat,” I told the vet.
I pressed a kiss to DeeDee’s snout. “Be a good girl. Rest and do what the doctor says, okay?”
“Okay,” she panted.
Patrick patted the top of her head with his free hand while God looked down at her from his perch on Patrick’s other hand.
“Until tomorrow, beast.”
“God bye.” She climbed back into her crate and lay down, resting her head on her front paws.
I rushed out before my heart broke or I started crying again.
I waited beside the red sports car for a few minutes until Patrick came out. When he did, he was carrying a tissue box, which he held out to me.
“I don’t need that.” I lifted my chin defiantly, not wanting him to think I was a crybaby.
“God’s in here,” he said.
“Take me home!” God yelled. “Feed me crickets!”
I grabbed the box from Patrick.
“Earthquake!” God shouted.
I stared down at him through the opening in the cardboard. “You wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t played stowaway,” I reminded him sternly. “So quit your bellyaching.”
“It’s a lizard, Mags,” Patrick raising his eyebrows, reminded me, climbing into the driver’s seat.
I got into the car. “I know that.”
“Sometimes, the way you talk to animals, it’s like you think they can understand you,” Patrick said, his concern for my mental health evident.
“Of course they don’t understand me.” The forced laugh I made sounded more like the caw of a dying crow than genuine amusement.
“Smooth,” God mocked.
“You could take the cat,” I said to Patrick. “She likes you and cats can be left alone for long periods of time.”
“I don’t need a cat,” Patrick said, pulling out of the parking lot.
“I know you don’t need one,” I wheedled, “but she could use a home.”
“Where to?” Patrick asked, effectively ending the cat conversation. “The B&B or the hospital?”
“God’s food is at my apartment.” I told him.
“The hospital,” God demanded imperiously. “I want to see Katie.”
Sighing I told Patrick, “But I don’t think he’ll starve if we go to the hospital first.”
“Okay.”
“You really don’t have to play chauffer for me all day,” I said. “If you drop me off at the B&B I can get my car.”
“No can do,” he said.
“Why not?”
“For one thing, Griswald wants someone on you 24/7.” Pulling to a stop at a red light, he gently touched my bruised cheek. “For another, Kowalski is still out there. Besides,” he joked, “I’m on the clock and am getting paid time-and-a-half to babysit you.” He returned his attention back to the road as the light turned green.
I relaxed into my seat feeling protected.
“Have you told him about the rats yet?” God asked as though he sensed I was growing complacent.
I shuddered at the memory of the dead rats that had been nailed to the front door of my apartment weeks earlier.
“Cold?” Patrick asked.
“Just a chill,” I choked out.
He glanced at me worriedly, then focused on his driving.
“So you haven’t told him?” God prompted.
I shook my head slightly, hoping Patrick wouldn’t notice my communication with the lizard.
“You should. It might be an important clue,” the lizard said knowingly. “He can do a better job protecting you if he has all the facts.”
I frowned, knowing he was right. I took a deep breath, and blurted out, “There’s something I need to tell you.”
Chapter Thirteen
“So weeks ago you come home and there are dead rats nailed to your door and you didn’t think to mention it?” Patrick asked, stalking across the visitors’ parking lot of the hospital.
I chased after him, trying not to jostle the tissue box. “You were away. You’d taken Daria,” I said defensively reminding him of the road trip he’d taken with his college-aged daughter so that she could be with her mother.
“And you didn’t think to mention it when I got back?”
“It was only one time.”
Coming to an abrupt halt, he spun around. I careened into him and would have fallen over if he hadn’t grabbed my arms to keep me upright. He glared down at me with more than a hint of anger in his gaze. He shook me, as though he wanted to shake some sense into me.
“Careful!” God yelped.
“Wha
t else haven’t you told me, Mags? What else are you hiding?”
“I’m not hiding anything.” I twisted free of his grip and continued walking toward the hospital entrance. “It’s just that not everything in my life is your business.”
“Tell him about the phone call,” God urged.
Patrick fell into step beside me. “I get that you need your privacy, but when somebody nails dead rats to your door, you should tell me,” he said with forced calmness.
“Tell him,” God prodded.
“Well then.” I stopped at a crosswalk to let a delivery van speed by before crossing the road to the hospital entrance. “You’re probably going to say I should have told you about the phone call too.”
“What phone call?” Patrick asked, now eerily calm.
I started across the crosswalk. “Some guy called my house phone.”
“The one you keep under the bed?” Patrick asked.
My cheeks burned as I remembered the time we’d rolled around in that bed. “Yes. He called and said, ‘We want the jewels. Tell the rat we want the jewels and if we don’t get ’em, his family is gonna pay.’ and then he hung up.”
I’d crossed the road before I realized Patrick was no longer beside me. I turned back and saw that he was still on the other side of the road, staring into the distance.
“He’s probably counting to ten,” I muttered.
“I said you should have told him at the time,” God reminded me.
Patrick crossed the road. “When did you get the call?”
“A couple of weeks ago. Right after you got back.”
“On your home phone?”
I nodded.
“I’ll look into getting the incoming calls traced.”
My cellphone buzzed.
I thrust the tissue box at Patrick, so I could get the phone out of my pocket. “Hold him.”
I glanced at the display.
My heart stuttered.
I started to shake.
“Who is it?” Patrick asked worriedly.
“The hospital,” I said, taking off for Katie’s room at a dead run.
I was barely aware of God screaming, “Ow! Ow! Slow down!” as I raced through the hospital with Patrick, carrying the lizard-in-a-box, on my heels.
Flying past the nurses’ station I ignored them calling out to me.
Rounding the corner, I barreled into Katie’s room at top speed.